By Christopher Lim

'DO you have Wi-Fi Internet access here?' That's the first question some modern road warriors ask when they check into a hotel - even before they inquire whether their stay comes with a complimentary breakfast. It's not just hardcore male geeks who are loaded with high-tech equipment either. Increasingly small, simple and convenient mobile gadgets have encouraged women to pack high-tech arsenals into their Gucci bags.

When visiting Europe's beautiful countryside or architectural wonders, sometimes it's nice to be able to tune out the prosaic din and select your own soundtrack. And that's precisely what an iPod Nano ($328 for 16GB) is for.

The latest generation of Apple's mid-range media player is actually the company's best balance of size and features because it has a colour screen that automatically rotates photos based on which way up you hold it, and plays videos clearly. It's also tiny and light. And you can play music on the plane without worrying about whether or not you've really turned your phone to non-transmitting 'flight' mode.

Why not just use an all-in-one mobile phone? It would certainly be smaller, lighter and cheaper than buying three different devices. But phones have limitations that might not suit your needs. A huge consideration is battery power. Having separate devices for each of your needs means you can squeeze in a few more pictures on the last jot of your camera's power without worrying about cutting off phone reception in a foreign country.

There's also the question of technical capability. If you're going to a beautiful country like Italy for the first time and want to take photos that will make lasting mementos, mobile phone cameras might not meet your expectations, even with the latest crop equipped with adept 8-megapixel cameras.

You don't want to take a few shots in a location you will probably never return to in your lifetime, only to discover later that they are out of focus or too dark. There's no substitute for lens quality and image sensor size, which you will get more of if you spend the same amount on a single-purpose camera as you would on a mobile phone.

Depending on a mobile phone for Internet access is risky in countries that don't have great tech infrastructure. Japan and Korea are fine, but many other places have unreliable or non-existent Wi-Fi Internet access, which means the answer to that question, 'Do you have Wi-Fi Internet access here,' might be: 'Our rooms have ethernet cables you can plug into your laptop.' At that moment, you will really appreciate a full-featured small laptop like Lenovo's X200, or even one of the smaller UMPCs out on the market.

Lenovo X200

THE latest rage is the ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), which typically costs less than $1000, is half the size and weight of a full-size laptop and equipped to handle light tasks like surfing the Internet or typing documents.

If you're going abroad for a week or longer, however, you might want a mobile computer with the ability to handle anything you throw at it, whether it's editing the pictures and videos you've taken with your camera, or playing a game or two. A new breed of mini-laptops has emerged to bridge the ground between traditional full-size laptops and UMPCs, and Lenovo's X200 ($3,199) exemplifies this. Battery life with the largest battery option exceeds that of any UMPC. It's also powerful, which means you can run most programs on it. There's no disc drive for CDs or DVDs, but that isn't a problem for everyone. The only real downside to the X200 isn't Lenovo's fault. The X200 comes with Microsoft's troubled Vista operating system pre-installed, and while some people haven't had any trouble with it, others haven't been so lucky.

BT's X200 review unit had the latest SP1 version of Vista installed but was still bedevilled by random crashes and unexpected shutdowns. With this in mind, you might want to consider wiping the hard disk clean and installing something leaner and more robust like the open-source Ubuntu Linux OS, which is free of charge to download.

Samsung NV100

THERE'S no reason to travel these days without a digital camera, especially as you can fit some amazingly powerful ones inside your pocket. Samsung's tiny and featherweight NV100 ($599) fits in your palm but boasts features usually found only on much more bulky 'pro-sumer' cameras. You get a resolution of 14.7 megapixels, which means you can take scenic shots, crop out a small portion of your picture to use, and still be left with enough visual quality to print out 4R-sized photos.

Although the NV100 functions well as a point-and-shoot camera, with snappy response and effective image stabilisation to make up for shaky hands, those who are inclined to tinker can use the camera's intuitive touchscreen interface to adjust settings. The NV100's automatic mode tends to over-expose pictures both with and without flash, so you might have to work a bit in tricky lighting, such as the top of a scenic hill at dusk.

limchris@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Business Times on Nov 15, 2008.